I Have Not Seen It Yet...

But I think maybe I should.

Oh Queso...

I should have posted this sooner, but, for some reason, I did not. I guess it was apathy and lethargy on my part. I got into Rutgers University (the campus in Newark, New Jersey). I was really excited when I got the e-mail, but that excitement has gone down considerably since I found out (it has been about a week)--not that anything happened...it is just...my routine has obliterated much of the excitement. I am, however, now anxious to hear back from the other schools to which I applied, namely, San Diego State University and the University of Chicago. I'm on the waiting list at the University of Chicago, and, when I called there earlier today, I found out that I will not hear from them until June. I cannot make hide nor hair of San Diego State's Web Portal (to check the status of my application), so I wonder if they will take me or not. Oh, and on top of that I still need to get the official packet in the mail from admissions from Rutgers as well. It is all a matter of waiting, really.

In light of all this, I have come to a realization: now that I actually have gotten into a school, I need to start practicing academic writing again. My reading has been going slow (as always), but it is extremely difficult to focus on a book when you are brain-dead from an entire day of performing either mindless tasks or wracking your brain trying to figure out how to get something done. Also, as this blog has evinced, I have not written anything academic in a very long time. All I have basically done was copy and paste other people's work without any in depth discussion. I have also failed in producing anything artistic in a while (a failed attempt at a story, a horrible poem that I would never post on here), and these next few months might be the last time I will have "free time" to produce something, anything.

Okay so--without promising anything--my fans (ha!) should expect to see a more serious, insightful, and enlightened Omer (ha!). Posts might be few and far between (as usual), but, hopefully, they will be somewhat academic, structured, clear, and succinct. I will try to avoid my rambling. I will try to write better. I will try.

The Soon-To-Be Graduate Student Is Sick

"Words, he realised, words, words, words. He had lived too much with words and not what the words stood for. James Joyce had been such another, with his deliberate choice of a sweetheart from a sweetshop, his refusal to correct a visitor who had called a painting a photograph, because 'photograph' was so lovely a word. But James Joyce at least had not told a gangster that he had done a tray on the moor just because he liked the sound of it. A world of words, thought Edwin, saying it aloud and liking the sound of it. 'A whirling world of words.' Apart from its accidents of sound, etymology and lexical definition, did he really know the meaning of any one word? Love, for instance. Interesting, that collocation of sounds: the clear allophone of the voiced divided phoneme gliding to that newest of all English vowels which Shakespeare, for instance, did not know, ending with the soft bite of the voiced labiodental. And its origin? Edwin saw the word tumble back to Anglo-Saxon and beyond, and its cognate Teutonic forms tumbling back too, so that all forms ultimately melted in the prehistoric primitive Germanic mother. Fascinating. But there was something about the word that should be even more fascinating, to the man if not to the philologist: its real significance when used in such a locution as 'Edwin loves Sheila'. And Edwin realised that he didn't find it fascinating. Let him loose in the real world, where words are glued to things, and see what he did: stole, swore, lied, committed acts of violence on things and people. He had never been sufficiently interested in words, that was the trouble."

Anthony Burgess, The Doctor Is Sick (pp. 152-3).

Can you relate to Edwin? Well, Kenya?

I Think I Would Rather Keep The Money...

This is an e-mail I got today from someone (something?) I do not know. I think it's hilarious.

"Subject: AMERICANS CAN STOP THIS WAR ON TERRORISM! PLEASE READ AND PASS IT ON!

I was watching one of those talk shows last night on this damn war in Iraq and the other countries we are fighting in. I can't remember who made the comment, but he said...'Someone should UP the reward on Bin Laden and let's just see how fast we bring him to Justice!'

That's when I thought to myself, 'that's it!!!' We the people can stop this war and do something that has never in history been done. With our personal money we can stop this war! Look at all the money we give to churches, peace causes and donations for righteous causes.... and for unnecessary items also. We the people could be a bigger voice than our Government and show true freedom and what this country is all about! We need to do this to show the rest of the world that this country was made for the people and we have the right and freedom to control our Government. Not our Government controlling the people. If we, the public, pooled our money together and made a reward for Bin Laden and all the other supposedly bad guys we're after. Some force of nature will take care of this problem for the USA. We the people can show the rest of the world that we are a benign entity as a whole. We the people can show the rest of the world that Democracy is the only way to stamp out injustice. We the people can control our destiny as a nation and show the world what our fore fathers had truly meant by the 'Melting Pot'.

I believe this is the way to stop the war.

All you Huge lottery winners. All you people with lots of money. And all you people who have money, who can spare to help this cause. Show your true voice!! Let's make a reward so irresistible that only the most noble of great women and men step forth to claim such a victory in American history. And let those who do try to claim such a victory, be honest, benign and true. Let's actually make this world a place we can all live in. With peace and tranquility. If money is truly power, than we the people have the power to stop this war!!! Never in history has this been done. WE CAN DO THIS WITH OUR MONEY! Let us put the rest of the world in awe by doing this! Let's show the world we truly want peace and not let our government speak for us!! We will make a monument of all the names who give money for this cause. The monument will have to be a website, since the probability of millions of names could be on it. A website of true American History. Let not only Americans donate for such a cause but those throughout the world who believe in world peace. Competition should be put aside. Working together to build a better future for all of mankind should be the main objective for us as humans.

We the people could stop this war. We could stop any war for that matter. No more innocent people dead.

I love my family and my country. I love people in general and want the best for all. I believe the majority of the world wants peace. It's only money and we can always make more. Address below:"

Of course, no address followed. It seems like it would cost more money to find Osama Bin Laden than the reward would be if every American donated to the cause. I also highly doubt that finding Osama Bin Laden will stop this war, or "any war." The naivete and child-like hope the e-mail engenders is laughable. This might have been written by a child for all I know: the syntax is certainly child-like. And to find someone greedy enough to risk life and limb to find Osama Bin Laden for money seems highly improbable too. This e-mail is just too ridiculous to be taken seriously. The things people expect people to believe... I think I would rather keep the money than give it to some ridiculous kid with a messianic complex.

A Pun, A Pun, My Kingdom For A Pun!

I posted this very thing on my Myspace. I have come to the realization that recycled material is good for all environments. If you give me all of the correct band names in this piece, you'll get a prize! It should be pretty easy for anyone that knows me well.

I use Green Rifles to shoot Red Robots on Green Days when I'm accused of being john Dillinger Four times; my real name is Elliott Smith, and I have achieved Nirvana so many times in my life that I am as high as a Bad Astronaut who just purchased a Wagon that Lags from Something that I understood to be as Corporate. I have Descended from the same source as ALL people, viz., Adam and Eve, who must have had the entire human genome coded in their DNA, unless you think some evolution occurred between now and then. In which case I might be wrong. That's what I've heard on the Radio that's in my Head. I live in Creeper Lagoon, a new town with Newfound Glory, a Bad Religion, and No Effects. I can produce no Offspring because of my wife's Swingin' Udders (which makes her known as a Violent Femme fatale), and that only makes me feel Less Than Jake does. That, in turn, makes me as Mad as a Caddy for Jimmy Carter and his Peace Mission (which involves Eating the World). I work in alkali flats with three guys, which makes us an Alkaline Trio; we're Diggers, too, so since all we do is destroy the already barren flats, I guess that would make us Vandals as well. When I'm finished with work, I look, feel, and smell Rancid. I usually read Matthew until I'm Good again and can join my Band of workers. One of them always calls me sam, and he forces me to respond with, "Sam I Am." It seems everyone calls me different things, so I have No Use For A Name. I would really like to Rise Against that notion, but it seems like I'm stuck with the Swindle of having more than one name. It makes me as crazy as a Goo Goo Doll. Agent 51, who works on Operation: Ivy, told me I'm stuck this way forever, but I know that's only Propaganda from Gandhi. I'm so much Weaker Than him. Just once, though, if I could be the one that Saves The Day, then I wouldn't cry like a Screeching Weasel. I just want to walk up to the mirror, look at myself, Face To Face, and tell myself to stop acting like such a Pinhead while stuffing Gunpowder in my 17th century musket. Of course, gunpowder would be everywhere, which will only make me a Weezer. I would like to someday have 88 Fingers just like Louie; that is the Confessional I told my Dashboard. Some people say louie has a Ten Foot Pole, but that's only a Social Distortion. Anyway, this is longer than it needs to be: I'm losing connection with The Network.